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Monday, July 9th, 2012

New York, NY — Sundance Institute today announced the acting company and creative advisors for the eight projects being developed at its 2012 Theatre Lab, July 9-29 at the Sundance Resort. Under the supervision of Philip Himberg, Producing Artistic Director, and Associate Director Christopher Hibma, the Lab is the centerpiece of the Theatre Program’s year-round work and is designed to support emerging and established artists and to create a place where their original work can be effectively mentored and challenged.

“The Theatre Lab allows each playwright to explore and follow his or her vision – wherever it takes them,” said Himberg. “Compelling plays are born when the pressures of production are not yet exerted on a final product. The 2012 Lab community represents an incredible diversity of that vision, and the acting company that will support and inform that work is extraordinary.”

Ken Saro-Wiwa (1941-1995) was hanged by the Nigerian dictatorship for his activism on behalf of his Nigerian Ogoni people. The original text is a condemned man’s last letter to his loved one. Mpoto and his team are adapting this text and using his poetic style in Kiswahili to combine it with slam poetry and storytelling to talk about corruption and abuse of power in contemporary Africa. Partnering with UK- based director Rubasingham of the Tricycle Theatre, the team will develop Sundance Institute’s first all- Kiswahili theatre project. Africa Kills Her Sun was previously workshopped at the 2011 Theatre Lab on Manda Island in Kenya as part of the Theatre Program’s charter Lab for East African artists and at the 2011 Theatre Lab at The Banff Centre.

Appropriate By Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Directed by Liesl Tommy The Lafayette family patriarch (and compulsive hoarder) is long dead, and it’s time to deal with the deserted and heavily mortgaged Arkansan homestead. When his three adult children descend upon the former plantation to liquidate the estate, a gruesome discovery among his many belongings become just the first in a serious of treacherous surprises. A play about family secrets, memory loss and the art of repression.

A Cage of Fireflies By Daniel Akiyama Directed by Phyllis S.K. LookA Cage of Fireflies (working title) tells the story of three elderly sisters of the kibei generation: sent as children to be raised in Okinawa, then returned to live and work in Hawai‘i. The oldest sister, Yukiko, confines herself and the youngest, Kimiko, to their Honolulu apartment, where they enact the small, private gestures and rituals of daily life and cling to a dream of returning to Okinawa. The middle sister, Mitsuko, has been charged with running their family’s orchid nursery and has inherited the honorific “onēsan” (“older sister”), a title that should by rights belong to Yukiko. As long-hidden hopes, resentments and regrets surface, the sisters are forced to confront the fundamental nature of their love for each other. The play explores the tug-of-war between progress and preservation, the selfish and the selfless.

Fun Home Music by Jeanine Tesori │ Book & Lyrics by Lisa Kron Directed by Sam Gold Based on the Alison Bechdel book “My father and I grew up in the same small Pennsylvania town and he was gay and I was gay and he killed himself and I became a lesbian cartoonist.” Fun Home is Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron’s musical adaptation of the acclaimed graphic novel by Alison Bechdel. The title refers to the family business, the Bechdel Funeral Home, and charts Alison’s quest to come to terms with her father’s life and death by painstakingly reconstructing their shared but unspoken bond.

Hands By Ken Greller Directed by Ken Rus Schmoll Set in a suburban Baltimore diner, Hands charts the friendship between Alex and Ray over 22 years. As Alex begins the process of gender transition, Ray treads the dangerous waters of a potentially misguided spiritual revelation. The friends grow further apart until their only commonality is a shared disconnect over the town they’re from and can’t seem to escape.

Song for the Disappeared By Tanya Saracho Directed by Octavio Solis Javi Cantu’s been missing for 48 hours. In another time and place, this wouldn’t be cause for concern, but disappearing on the Texas/Mexico Border in this day and age could turn out to be more than dangerous; it could be a tragedy. The Cantus, an affluent and influential Mexican family in Texas, must set aside their differences and heal their schisms if only long enough to discover who or what has caused the family’s only male son’s disappearance. This play follows El Nogalar as Saracho’s second in her Border Trilogy.Song for the Disappeared is a commission of the Goodman Theatre.

ToasT By Lemon Andersen Directed by Elise Thoron Willie Green a.k.a. "Dolomite," the famous Folklore hero from the old Black Narratives, is still known as the baddest badass out of San Antone, but he's aged and has been locked up for murder in Attica's D-Block for the last 27 years. Word is brewing throughout Attica that a riot is coming, but Dolomite and his cellmates would rather not get involved until the youngest inmate in D-Block gets a vicious beating by the officers for talking like a liberal about the prison conditions. Does Dolomite join the riots and take vengeance upon the officers for what they did – or lock himself in his cell and hope for a promised parole date and the chance to taste freedom? ToasT is a commission of the Public Theater/UTR.

Useless Bay By Sarah Treem In 1971, before domestic violence shelters were part of the cultural landscape, Agnes, the proprietress of a little bed and breakfast in the Pacific Northwest, has been running her own underground railroad of sorts. She helps abused girls escape, recover and move on. At it for 20 years, Agnes thinks she’s seen pretty much all there is to see in the darkness between men and women. She’s not afraid of the victims or their abusers; it’s her boy-crazy teenage daughter, Penny, who terrifies her. So when Mary Anne, a charming new girl with a battered face, arrives, Agnes thinks she’s found the solution. But Mary Anne is not as stable as she seems. And outside, in the distance, the drumbeats of a larger social unrest are beginning to rattle the walls. The play explores the undefined relationship between sex and violence, desire and dependence, feminism and foolery.

The Theatre Lab provides rehearsal space, dramaturgical support, an acting company, stage management and accommodations/meals for playwrights, directors, choreographers, composers, solo performers and ensembles. The Lab’s unique day-on, day-off rehearsal structure provides Fellows the time to explore revising their work, without the pressure of daily rehearsals, as well as freedom from commercial attention. The three-week residency culminates in a closed presentation of each project for Lab participants, followed by a collaborative feedback session. Fellows at the Lab are supported by a team of advisors and colleagues who provide feedback on the material and process.

The Sundance Institute Theatre Program is made possible by generous support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Time Warner Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, The Shubert Foundation, Inc., Cindy Harrell Horn and Alan Horn, LUMA Foundation, Theatre Communications Group, Karen and William Lauder, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, USA for Africa, Lewis W. Bernard, Mark and Nancy Gilbert, George Gund, Ann Moore, Marc and Julie Platt, Mary Jo and Ted Shen, and Julie Taymor.

Sundance Institute Theatre Program The Theatre Program has been a core component of Sundance Institute since Robert Redford founded the Institute in 1984. The Theatre Program identifies and assists emerging theatre artists, contributes to the creative growth of established artists, and encourages and supports the development of new work for the stage. Under the guidance of Producing Artistic Director Philip Himberg, the Theatre Program is the leading play development program in the United States. Titles such as Spring Awakening, An Iliad, I Am My Own Wife, The Good Negro, Circle Mirror Transformation, Passing Strange, Grey Gardens, Crowns and Marie Antoinette have gone from Theatre Program Labs to production from coast to coast and internationally, garnering multiple Pulitzers, Tonys, Obies and other recognition. The Theatre Program’s East Africa initiative is the only professional program of its type on the continent, offering Labs, cross-cultural exchange, mentorship and exposure to artists in six African countries. www.sundance.org/theatre

Sundance InstituteSundance Institute is a global nonprofit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981. Through its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, composers and playwrights, the Institute seeks to discover and support independent film and theatre artists from the United States and around the world, and to introduce audiences to their new work. The Institute promotes independent storytelling to inform, inspire, and unite diverse populations around the globe. Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects as Born into Brothels, Trouble the Water, Son of Babylon, Amreeka, An Inconvenient Truth, Spring Awakening, I Am My Own Wife, Light in the Piazza and Angels in America. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.